Well unless I am missing something with your suggestion, this is kinda how the mesh algorithm works already.
What teh video here: Mesh Broadcast Algorithm | Meshtastic
There is configuration how far can hop: LoRa Configuration | Meshtastic
In theory nodes are always ‘listening’ (as long as not currently transmitting!) - so they when one node transmits a packet, all surrounding nodes can receive it. And most of the time, will be rebroadcast. So ‘hops’ around the network.
… but in practice, real meshes are somewhat messy, as often messages can’t fully treverse a mesh. Gets lost in loops, or drowned out before gets very far.
So ‘building’ a route alone a linear line is quite trickly, although possible.
Did also built this:
which attempts to simulate (a somewhat idealized) senario.
Its not very easy to see this routing in the App, but in general can see it happening, most recent apps, include a ‘Hops’ metric that show how many hopes are used to connect to a remote node.